Export market Development Grants

Are you currently looking to begin or grow the exporting side of your business? You may be eligible for funding under the Export Market Development Grants (EMDG) scheme.

Run by Austrade, the EMDG scheme:

• encourages small and medium sized Australian businesses to develop export markets
  
• reimburses up to 50 per cent of expenses incurred on eligible export promotion activities
  
• provides up to eight grants to each eligible applicant.

To access the scheme for the first time, businesses need to have spent $10 000 over two years on eligible export marketing expenses. Applications for the 2008-09 grant year are open between 1 July 2009 and 30 November 2009.

To check your eligibility, visit Austrade's website. For more information contact Austrade on 13 28 78 and ask for your local office, or email EMDG.help@austrade.gov.au, indicating which state you are from.

theBizWiz

http://www.boulterassociates.com.au/
http://www.informgroup.com.au/

Free Business Marketing Research Service

Looking for statistics for your business marketing research? You can now speak to trained consultants using the National Information and Referral Service (NIRS).

Run by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), NIRS can answer straightforward enquiries over the phone at no cost. For more complex questions, you may be referred on to other resources, including the ABS website or public libraries. Some data is available on request, using a fee-for-service basis. If you are looking for information not dealt with by the ABS, you may be referred to other agencies for assistance.

For further information and to access the service, phone 1300 135 070 or visit the ABS website.

theBizWiz
http://www.boulterassociates.com.au/
http://www.informgroup.com.au/

GST Madness

Straight from the ATO Website.......

A crazy tax system..... you think !

What are pizza rolls?

Pizza rolls are savoury bread rolls similar to cheese-topped and cheese and bacon rolls. They are also called Italian rolls.

Pizza rolls are sold on the day they are baked.

Generally, pizza rolls:

• can be cut and filled
• have a traditional bread dough base
• have a topping or filling that is less than 30% of the roll’s depth
• don’t have any of the three characteristics of pizza, pizza subs or pizza pockets.

Characteristics of pizzas, pizza subs and pizza pockets

Pizzas, pizza subs and pizza pockets:

• cannot be cut and filled, do not need filling or topping added and are ready to eat
• are made with dough (sometimes called ‘pizza dough’) with more oil and less yeast than traditional bread dough
• have a topping or filling that is more than 30% of the product’s depth.

How do you treat pizza rolls for GST?

Pizza rolls can be either taxable or GST-free.

When pizza rolls are GST-free

Schedule 1 in the GST law lists foods that are taxable.

A food is GST-free if it is:

• not listed in Schedule 1
• for human consumption.

Pizza rolls are:

• not listed in Schedule 1
• for human consumption
• GST-free if they are not
• similar to pizza, pizza subs, pizza pockets (see below)
• sold ready filled and ready to eat like a sandwich or roll.

When pizza rolls are taxable

Pizza rolls are taxable if the rolls are similar to pizza, pizza subs, pizza pockets (see below).

What is ‘similar food’ to pizza rolls?

Similar food has:

• a general likeness to pizzas, pizza subs or pizza pockets
• all of the three common characteristics of pizzas, pizza subs and pizza pockets.

Example: GST-free rolls

Alex’s Gourmet Foods sells pizza rolls which are baked fresh daily. Customers buy the rolls to take away.

The dough base is flour, salt, oil, yeast and water. The toppings are tomato, bacon, pineapple, herbs and cheese. The topping makes up 20% of the roll’s depth. The customer can add more filling to the roll if they want to.

The rolls are GST-free because the:

• rolls can be cut and filled
• topping depth is less than 30% of the depth of the product.

Example: Taxable rolls

Leo’s Universal Foods sells pizza rolls which are baked fresh daily. Customers buy the rolls to take away.

The dough base is flour, a lot of olive oil, a very small amount of yeast, water and salt. The toppings are tomato, bacon, pineapple, herbs and cheese. The topping makes up 35% of the roll’s depth. The customer can’t cut through the roll to add more filling.

The rolls are taxable because the:

• rolls don’t need extra topping or filling
• topping makes up 30% of the product’s depth
• rolls are similar to pizza, pizza subs and pizza pockets.

theBizWiz

http://www.boulterassociates.com.au/
http://www.informgroup.com.au/

Govt program to help Small Business save $

There must be a catch......

On the 5th  January 2009, the NSW Government announced a new program to help small business cut back its power usage and save money.  The NSW Energy Efficiency for Small Business program provides support in the form of financial rebates and advice on ways in which companies can reduce their power usage.  The program can provide up to $5 000 in funding when applying more energy efficient measures in areas including:

• lighting and heating
• electric motors
• air compressors
• commercial refrigeration.

This Energy Efficiency for Small Business Program is available to businesses that use up to $20,000 in electricity a year.  The program offers:

• financial support for a personalised energy assessment and action plan
• a rebate of up to $5,000 for businesses that use $5,000-$20,000 a year in electricity and $2,000 for businesses that use less than $5,000 a year in electricity.

The rebate is for implementing energy efficiency improvements as outlined in a range of action plans, including:

• Lighting
• heating, ventilation, air-conditioning
• electric motors
• air compressors
• commercial refrigeration
• -boilers

The NSW Energy Efficiency for Small Business Program is part of the NSW Government's $150 million Energy Efficiency Strategy, which is designed to help NSW households, government and business save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  If you want more information on Climate Change Strategies, Green Business or Energy Saving, or assistance for the Energy Efficiency for Small Business Program, please feel free to contact me or go direct to the NSW Government on 1300 361 967

theBizWiz

http://www.boulterassociates.com.au/
http://www.informgroup.com.au/

Does your computer take too long to Startup?

What is it about PCs and the time they take to startup? How come a new PC can start real quick but after a period of time it takes forever? You know the morning routine.......login and go off to get a cup of coffee while the computer gets ready for you to use it.

Usually, it is the amount of "software" that you have on the computer. When it is new, unless it has been stuffed with Try Me applications at birth, the PC will start quickly. But as time goes on, we all install applications to do various things. These applications all want to load in a way that makes them easily accessible from the System Tray or be quick startup. As we add application after application we increase the startup time of the PC.

That is the simple answer. Yes, the more technical users will talk about Registry issues and other esoteric discussions. But the bottom line is: "If you buy a PC with MS Windows on it, with Office and install no other software on it......ever, it will startup pretty fast all the time."

But we are all human. We buy a phone these days and it has a CD that has software to connect the phone up. Then we get another phone and we dont delete the software from the previous phone. We add printers so we have to install some more software. We want to burn CD backups of our "music collection" so we install some more software. An email comes with an attractive application that offers a Try Me for free, so we install that to see how it goes.......you get my point?

theBizWiz

http://www.boulterassociates.com.au/
http://www.informgroup.com.au/

Tax Cuts for Small Business

Good news for your business: "To further assist small businesses during the global financial crisis, the government recently announced a tax cut to the quarterly Pay As You Go (PAYG) instalment. The PAYG reduction will generally only be available to small business entities which have an aggregated turnover of $2 million per annum or less.

For PAYG instalments due on either 21 January 2009 or 28 February 2009, the amount payable will be reduced by 20 per cent."

Any reduction in the amount of tax paid by a small business is good and this announcement before Xmas on Dec 17th was a good Xmas present. See the ATO website for more information.

theBizWiz

http://www.boulterassociates.com.au/
http://www.informgroup.com.au/